


Death Spiral

by riptheh



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, F/M, Gen, Relationship Study, but they are in love in a way that transcends physical boundaries and thats the TEA, doctor/master has no gender anyway, romance in the SLIGHTEST sense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-04
Updated: 2020-01-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:02:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22113046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/riptheh/pseuds/riptheh
Summary: It's always been the two of them, orbiting each other.(The Master takes the Doctor to the forest himself, and they have a talk.)
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor & The Master (Dwahan), Thirteenth Doctor/The Master (Dhawan)
Comments: 16
Kudos: 240





	Death Spiral

**Author's Note:**

> I do not know what this is. Except I love exploring the Doctor and the Master's relationship. Which produced...this. Also: Here be spoilers! Beware.

“Got you,” he says, chest heaving, ugly vindication spilling from his every pore, “finally.”

Then he grabs her by the collar, hoists her to her knees, and in a flash, they disappear.

“—no, no, no, no, no!” Her cries whisk into existence at the same time as she does, crashing upon a forest floor. She catches a glimpse of spindly trees stretching to an invisible sky, blue light filtering between trunks, then her knees are hitting damp, hard ground, and she’s folding like a chair, the Master’s fist still buried in her collar.

“Let me—” She’s choking on the words, spluttering, hacking— “let me go!”

He laughs, loud and hysterical and unadulterated, like he’s spent so long holding it in he can’t contain it any longer.

“Oh, I don’t think so.” His grip tightens, and he drags her unwillingly to her feet, bringing them face to face. She blinks, and she’s looking into his eyes and  _ oh _ , it hurts, because now she knows those eyes. Millenia worn, and they’re familiar as her own.

They’re utterly, indescribably, mad. His face dances with it; his grin is too large, too twitchy. He blinks too much, and his eyes dart over her face, restless. He’s taking her in, she realizes a moment later. Studying, the way she’s studying him.

New form, old friend. They always did that, didn’t they? Time to check what the new one’s like. Pinch, prod, poke. Before he kills her, he wants to know who she is.

“A woman this time, Doctor.” His grin mislays his words; they twist unevenly, even as his lips stretch too wide across large teeth. “I don’t like it.”

“Nor me, you,” she spits, and his face buckles darkly. He unclenches his fist, and it’s only then she realizes he was supporting her, because she falls to her feet and staggers. She looks like a drunk, shambling, and funny enough, but it’s that thought that breaks the camel’s back. Guilt slams over her like water from a broken dam, nearly forces her to her knees again. It’s only luck she stays upright.

“My friends—” she gasps, nearly dry-heaving with it, because the only other alternative is to sob. “They—”

“Are dead,” the Master dismisses with a wave of his hand. He puts his hands behind his back and turns on his heel, clicks both together like a showman. “Oh, nice place this is, isn’t it? Good friends of mine to bring me here. We’ll definitely—” he starts to giggle, uncontrollable— “oh, we’ll have so much fun!”

“Fun,” the Doctor repeats dizzily. Her thoughts are turning in her head, searching every alternative, looking for a way out, and there are none. Only the person standing in front of her, her oldest friend and worst enemy, the one she’d never wanted to see again. She can’t stand the sight of him now, the madness glittering in his eyes, the unhinged showmanship of it all, not when she’d tried to put so much of that behind her. Missy was dead, and so was Bill, and with them she buried her past and started anew, and she’d been doing so well, so  _ well _ — 

“Having a little crisis there, Doctor?” The Master’s worried face appears in her vision, and only then does she realize that she’s slumped to her knees, her head lolling, the world spinning. Her breath is coming in shallow rasps, and her hearts are going like a drumbeat, drowning out everything else.

_ Knock-knock, knock-knock _ .

Her head shoots up and she rears back, away from his leering face.

“Get away from me,” she gasps, and watches that ugly grin contort. “Get me back to my friends, or I’ll—I’ll—”

“You’ll what?” His grin turns playful, beckoning. “You’ll do me in? We both know you like me too much.”

“Do not,” she whispers, but her shoulders slump, because it’s the truth. He’s insane, yes, but within that insanity she sees all the little signs that made her love him, once. His showmanship, his cheeky smile just before he was about to do something incredibly clever. The want in his eyes, shining for approval, for her validation, for her  _ friendship _ .

Morals force her to withhold it, and he’ll never understand that, and that’s why, really, they’ll always be like this. She can’t condone somebody who murders. He can’t let her turn her back, no matter how much she tries.

He’s always been in love with her, but she’s the one with the broken hearts. They circle each other like that, two black holes locked in a death spiral, spinning around until they crash.    


“I want you,” she says it slowly, belaboring each word, “to let me go. Please. I’m begging you.”

Open capitulation. It’s new for her. She’s always faced him with spite in her eyes, and sometimes, forgiveness, but never surrender. She can’t bear it, usually, the satisfaction of letting him win. But now, her friends are dying and it’s all her fault, and he’s won this, fair and square.

Surprise sends him rearing back, the ugly look on his face dropping, just for a fraction of a second. Then it’s back again, and it’s meaner, crueler, than ever.

“No.” His face twists, his breath comes heavy, shuddering. “Wha—why would I do that? You’re a fool, Doctor.” Childishly, he kicks at the ground in front of her, sending alien dirt flying into her face. “I’ve won, don’t you get that? I have you  _ here _ , in my kingdom, and now—”

He pauses, sucking in a breath, then leans in close, his grin wide. It’s forced a little, now. She can see it in the tightness around his eyes, the stiff set of his jaw. She’s thrown him for a loop, just like she always does.

“Now,” he repeats, sending slightly sour breath wafting over her face, “I’m going to do what I like with you.”

“Kill me?” The Doctor looks up, meets his gaze head on. Her lip curls, familiar disdain settling into place. “Why? You could have killed me on the plane.”

The Master draws back, eyes widening with utter innocence. 

“Why,” he says. “Why, no. What do you take me for?” He chuckles, soft and then a little too long, long enough to grow hysterical. “No, no, no, no, Doctor. We’re going to have a talk.”

“A talk?” the Doctor balks. Of course, she should have remembered, always forgets, just how good the Master is at catching her by surprise. “ _ Why? _ ”

“Because.” The Master is still chuckling, the sound rebounding through the forest. “Doctor, it’s been so long. When have we last caught up? When have we had a chat? Oh, c’mon now—texting doesn’t count. I want to  _ know _ you.”

“Know me,” the Doctor repeats hoarsely. “I don’t even know who you are. It’s been—”

“ _ Years _ .” The Master cuts her off sharply, his head jerking down, his eyes boring into her face. “Yes, Doctor. Years. So much time you’ve spent, I see, gallivanting around the universe. So long since we’ve last met, when you were nothing but a stupid old man, bent on saving some idiot human. Another one of your  _ friends _ , I presume.”

He wraps the word in sneering disdain, as he always does, just to remind the Doctor how nothing they are compared to him. 

“Bill was brilliant,” the Doctor gasps, and somewhere in there vaguely recalls that she’s still on her knees, that she should be collecting herself, getting to her feet and fighting back, but she  _ can’t _ . “And you’re nothing to me,  _ Master _ . You’ve long stopped mattering to me.”

“Have I?” The Master squats down suddenly, balancing on his heels so as to be eye level. “Or is that just another lie you’ve been telling, Doctor? Oh, I’ve seen them, you know. Had a few chats with your friends, too. And let me tell you—” he laughs softly— “they’ve begun to notice.”

“No they haven’t,” the Doctor protests, but it’s another lie, even weaker than the last, because she’d seen their faces on the plane. Even worse, she knows they saw hers, in those spare moments when she’d been knocked flat on her back, too stunned to even formulate a response. In less than a minute, the Master had destroyed everything she’d been trying so hard to build.

If she ever sees her friends alive again, she wonders if they’ll ever forgive her.

“That doesn’t matter.” She goes for a different tact, grabs it weakly and clings. “It doesn’t, because they’re my friends, and once I save them—”

“As  _ if! _ ” He grabs her by the bowtie and yanks her forward, so close their noses are almost touching. She watches as his eyes search her face, looking for—she’s not even sure. She never has been. Every time they meet, she knows, he’ll dig deep for something he can’t find, and she’ll do the same to him. Picking at each other until there’s nothing left but bone.

“You don’t understand, Doctor.” His eyes dart over her face, hungry in a way that’s beyond physical. Hungry for what they had, hungry for what they could have been. “There’s no way out, except for me. You and I? We’re it. We always have been. We’re bound, the two of us.”

He reaches out and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, and in a flash she’s back upon that red grass, a young boy with floppy hair, and the Master would laugh and push her hair back from her forehead because it always fell over her eyes— 

She pulls back, away from his touch, away from his glare, and notices as she does his own floppy hair, falling over his forehead. Her hearts ache for it, but she does nothing. Only drops her gaze and turns her head away. A clear sign. An end.

The Master stares. She isn’t even looking at him, but she can feel his eyes upon her, warm and utterly heartbroken, and it occurs to her that it’s not fair, because in breaking his hearts, she’s only broken her own all over again.

Again, and again, and again. Two black holes locked in a death spiral. Endlessly circling. Inexorably bound to crash. What keeps them apart, she thinks bitterly, except for everything she holds dear?

Trapped. They always will be, and she hates it. When she looks up, she sees him still watching her, shock and hurt morphing into that familiar psychotic anger.

“So that’s it,” he says, voice hard, slipping, “That’s all.”

His hair, she thinks, is falling over his forehead.

“Yes,” she says, because it’s true and yet never will be, because it’s always been over and hasn’t even finished. Like the light from a dead star, still traveling though its source is long since gone. “Yes.”

She reaches out, and brushes his hair back from his forehead. 

**Author's Note:**

> me @ myself: but what does it all MEAN


End file.
